


Galena

by sloganeer



Series: Panic at the West Wing [5]
Category: Panic At The Disco, The West Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-24
Updated: 2009-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sloganeer/pseuds/sloganeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Spencer doesn't sit, he doesn't have to admit this is his office. Not yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Galena

He can see his desk just fine from the doorway. He can do his job from the hall.

"But where will you put your stuff?" Ryan asks, standing at his shoulder.

"That's what the box is for." Spencer holds it up so Ryan can see. He snorts in Spencer's ear, then pushes him through the door. Spencer's trips over his frozen feet, over the edge of new carpet not nailed down.

It doesn't look like much. Two desks, some shelves, and a television tuned to the parade, but muted. Ryan's eyes keep flicking to the screen, though the speech is done, and all that's left is the pageantry. They watched the oath backstage, Ryan with his eyes closed and Brendon's sweaty hands in both of theirs. Jon was somewhere among the masses, and Spencer's phone kept beeping with photos and texts. After the speech, before the parade, Josh found them and told them to head over to the White House. Get familiar with the place, he said. Find your desk. Work starts now.

"I thought you were being zen, today." Spencer puts his box on the smaller desk.

"Turns out saying the word doesn't make it true."

"The senator says words have greater power than you know."

Ryan smiles. "President." He moves around Spencer to steal the chair at his desk. There, he can still see the screen, but doesn't have to admit that he's watching. If Spencer doesn't sit, he doesn't have to admit this is his office. Not yet. He'll just keep his scarf wrapped and his coat buttoned.

The box stays on the desk, ignored, until Ryan starts unpacking. There are the pens Spencer likes and the travel clock he dragged across America. No pictures of family and dogs, but one of Jon's Polaroids from their last campaign stop in Vegas. Brendon got a hold of it and started shaking it before Spencer could tell him not to, then Ryan stole Jon's Sharpie and wrote, HOME, in the white space. They watched it develop before getting in the van, bound for the airport. Jon said, It's yours, and Spencer put it in his notebook with all the rest.

Ryan gave it back to Spencer in a frame this morning, over breakfast, before Inauguration.

"Brendon said he'd track down Jon and they'll meet us here." Ryan's going through the desk drawers now.

"I have to stay. The President starts work today."

"I know." He's playing with a stapler.

"Don't you have an office? Give me that," Spencer says, putting the stapler back in its drawer.

"No staples," Ryan tells him.

Down the hall, across the building, Ryan shares an office with three other speechwriters. He was hoping for something a little closer to the action, but they're still so young. We'll get there, Spencer told him once, after a campaign stop in Alaska.

The Galena Air Force Base was closing, and Spencer was freezing, but trying not to look like he was freezing, on the stage in front of a city losing its livelihood. The senator and Donna were perfectly coordinated in navy and white. The two of them looked ready for the yacht. He kept slapping Spencer's shoulder and telling him to enjoy the brisk air.

"I live in the desert, sir."

"Not anymore, Spencer. You live in America." He gets like this when the speeches are going well and the numbers are good. "When we get to Washington--" but then the mayor announced his name, the crowd cheered, and the senator bounded up to the podium to tell the people that this is not the time for despair.

It was a late moment in the campaign, when Spencer didn't need convincing of Sam Seaborn, but that moment, at a decommissioned Air Force base in Galena, Alaska, was the first time he heard the senator talk about Washington. Spencer wanted to see him to the end of this, but Washington was so far away. Almost as far away as they could have been. In the senator's words, he could hear it. (He heard it again on the plane, every time Brendon flailed across Spencer's seat to recite his favourite phrase for Ryan.)

Spencer has an office in Washington now, a desk and chair, but he can't take off his coat.

"This is it, Spence," Ryan tells him, and Spencer thinks they can't possibly be here.

There are four doors in Spencer's office. One leads to the hall and the rest of the West Wing, one opens outside, another into the Cabinet Room. It's the fourth door Ryan and Spencer are staring at now.

"You wanna?"

Even with Ryan holding his hand, Spencer can't do it. Not yet.

"I can wait," he says.

"OK."

They watch the rest of the parade in the Communications bullpen with staffers they know from the campaign and more that they don't. Brendon finds them there. He perches on the arm of Spencer's chair, holding his hand palm up to show him a Sharpie-drawn heart. "He's still out there," Brendon reports. "Capturing the moment." On TV, the President waves for the camera, right outside the White House.

"I have to go." Spencer pushes Brendon off his lap so he can stand.

"We'll pick you up later!" Ryan shouts after him

Spencer shouts back, "Go do some work."

Bonnie is unpacking her own box on her own desk when Spencer gets back. "Hey, kid," she says, glancing over her shoulder to smile at him in the doorway. It's easier to step through this time. Someone must have come by to fix the carpet. Spencer turns the Polaroid so he can see it when he sits, but he doesn't get that chance. From behind that fourth door, the one he couldn't open, someone calls his name.

"Time to go to work," Bonnie tells him.

He pats his jacket, checking for his phone, his notebook, his pen. He says, quietly, to himself, "I live in America." He takes one more breath. He steps through the door.


End file.
